John Antranig Kasbarian: Charitable Assistance From Diaspora for Social Change

Dr. John Antranig Kasbarian, from the Tufenkian Foundation, at the END OF TRANSITION: Armenia 25 Years On. Now What? conference organized by the USC Institute of Armenian Studies in Yerevan, spoke about the 25 years of diasporan assistance practices and charitable work carried out by different organizations in Armenia since 1988.

Dr Kasbarian, who has a PhD from Rutgers University, serves as a trustee of the New York-based Tufenkian Foundation which has been doing charitable work in Armenia since 1998 and in Karabakh since 2003.

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Editor's choice

2018 ended on a disturbing note in the Azov Sea with a de facto blockade by Russia and what amounted to an act of Russian state-sanctioned piracy against Ukrainian shipping. No one can tell what this crisis means for next year. Will this aggression be confined to limited Russian objectives in and around the Azov Sea? Does it signal a new effort to destabilize Ukraine as a whole during its election year? Or does it augur something bad for Russia’s other neighbors as well? Maybe the men in the Kremlin don’t know themselves.

Yet in Armenia that is exactly what seems to have happened. The president, Serzh Sargsyan, tried to dodge term limits by making himself into an executive prime minister. The streets erupted in protest. Nikol Pashinyan, a charismatic and bearded former journalist and mp, was swept into power, legally and properly, on a wave of revulsion against corruption and incompetence. His new party alliance won 70% of the vote in a subsequent election. A Putinesque potentate was ejected, and no one was killed. Russia was given no excuse to interfere. A note of caution: Armenia’s nasty territorial dispute with Azerbaijan has not been resolved and could ignite again. However, an ancient and often misruled nation in a turbulent region has a chance of democracy and renewal. For that reason, Armenia is our country of the year. Shnorhavorum yem!

The appointment was announced during the Aurora Dialogues in Berlin. Dr. Catena joins the organization during a period of significant growth and will be responsible for engaging key humanitarian stakeholders, working with global partners and overseeing Aurora’s educational and outreach projects, including the internationally recognised, Aurora Prize. Aurora was established three years ago, and has impacted the lives of displaced individuals, children in conflict zones, refugees, migrants and vulnerable citizens around the world. Since 2016, the Aurora Prize has awarded over $3.3 million to unsung heroes and has supported 23 projects in 11 areas of humanitarian assistance globally. This year, the Aurora Prize supported over 375,000 Rohingya refugees. A further 62 students from conflict areas have been recipients of the Aurora Gratitude Scholarships program to study at United World Colleges around the world and the American University of Armenia.